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This site offers a really comprehensive and simple poster on ‘cyber bullying’ for anyone using the Internet and Facebook. A ‘must’ for parents with young children who have their own FB accounts. Thank you Jane, my lovely Australian friend, now living in Dublin! I miss you.

Mathilde has always dreamed of having a good life that comes with money and wealth. Sadly her husband, Charles, is not able to provide these, being a Government Clerk. He, however, adores his wife and tries his best to please her. One day he comes home with an invitation to a party.

Mathilde complains that she has nothing to wear and even after Charles sacrifices money (he was saving to buy a rifle with) for a new dress, she is distressed that she has no fine jewels to complement the outfit.

Charles suggests that she borrow something from her rich friend, Madame Jeanne Forestier. Mathilde does and picks the fanciest diamond necklace that she can find.

On returning from the party, Mathilde, flushed at all the attention and Charles, bored, Mathilde discovers that the necklace is missing!

Now here is where it gets interesting, neither Mathilde nor Charles have the courage or lack of pride to convey the truth to Madame Forestier and instead embark on a ten year burden to repay the money for a necklace that they have substituted for the original one.

Mathilde whose seemingly vacuous life now becomes obsessed with paying the money back. They take out loans and she works her fingers to the bone in an effort to pay the 36, 000 francs necessary for the diamond necklace. Charles too, takes on extra work and both live out a ‘decade nightmare’ of the bleakest life.

The sting in the story comes when the debt has been paid and Mathilde bumps into Madame Forestier, the latter who is looking fresh and pretty as the years have been kind to her. Mathilde in contrast looks older than her years and Madame Forestier does not recognize her at first.

Mathilde is so pleased to meet her and feels that it is time to come ‘clean’ and own up about the diamond necklace replacement. Madame Forestier is surprised at the news and replies that the original necklace was a ‘fake’ and was only worth 500 francs at the most!

This is a wonderful tale of human failure, greed and all consuming pride.

I woke up one morning to begin a new job at the Department of National Health and Population Development, South Africa, only to discover at the end of the week, that I was pregnant with ‘yours truly’.

Larry and I were ‘over-the-moon’ at this fantastic news, however I had to try and hide this pregnancy from my new employers. This was not easy as Keagan had a voracious appetite in my tummy!

Keagan was born through caesarean section at Parklands hospital on 30th October 1991.

Our first child and the first grand-child of Hugh and Nadine James.

Keagan delighted us with hisachievement of every milestone, with a head full of blonde ringlets, he was a beautiful, good child.

Being somewhat of an opportunist, when Rolf Offerman vacated his flat in Cumberland I saw the perfect opportunity to sell our house and move in next door to my mother who could then be a 24/7 babysitter!

Keagan grew up with both Piet and Nadine’s full attention. Sunday morning ‘sleep in’s’ were paradise for Larry and I as I would shove Keagan into their flat and tell him to “go and find Dinie”!

Keagan ate his first ‘solid’, said his first ‘word’ and indeed took his first ‘step’ in 71 Cumberland which has been home to him until very recently.

I did not return to work for many years and enjoyed Keagan’s development, watching this gorgeous toddler grow into the loving, sensitive, kind gentleman he is today.

A year and a half after Keagan was born darling Chesney came along.

At first Keagan did not enjoy the ‘shared attention’ and I remember at Chesney’s bris when my sister, Merida, was holding him, in Cumberland, Keagan wanted Mer to take Chesney back with her to Cape Town!!

It has filled me with such pride to see how Keagan and Chesney have grown up together as ‘brothers’ in the full sense of the word.

Both are them are sociable with many friends but their love and loyalty to each other reminds me of “He ain’t heavy he’s my brother!” (and he IS quite heavy, no offense Ches! ha ha)

Keagan, Chesney and I have a ‘special bond’ and have gone through some ‘challenging times’ and I have always been an advocate of ‘what doesn’t break you makes you stronger’.

In 2002 Eothan came along and both Keagan and Chesney made way for a little ‘bro’ who they nurtured.

I am sad that I cannot be with you all today and wish you a wonderful celebration to this outstanding young man.

Keagan, you have been and always will be ‘my best friend’.

Distance shores do not effect the ‘real, honest’ relationship that we share and for that I thank you.

obsess with cement, glass and wire is revealed in this little museum kept in her honour.

Helen Martins was born on 23rd December in 1897 and inherited the

quaint little house after her parents died.

As you enter the house you can feel the atmosphere of ‘strangeness’, an eerie experience as you view glass crushed on the walls, glass of every conceivable colour and shape in every room, hanging, catching the natural light of the sun.

You can feel the loneliness and persecution of this lady’s ‘stifled’ spirit in her time in the small conservative town, Nieu-Bethesda, where conformity was the order of the day.

There are camels, owls, cats,sphinxes and people, many with bulbous protruding eyes, all made of glass bottles.

Helen’s fascination with the Orient is evident in all the statues pointing and some desperately ‘reaching out’ in one direction, all facing the same way; Eastwards.

Helen drew her inspiration from Christian biblical texts, poetry of Omar Khayyam and works of William Blake. In 1964 she was assisted by Koos Malgas, a Coloured man; this drew considerable suspicion in the apartheid-era of South Africa.

Helen’s eyesight began to fail from excessive exposure to fine crushed glass which led her to commit suicide at the age of 78 on August 8th 1976. The Owl House was declared a provisional national monument in 1991.

South African playwright Athol Fugard drew inspiration from her story in his play The Road to Mecca in 1985, this was later made into a film.

It was an amazing experience where I actually felt her pain and anguish as portrayed in her many statues in the backyard. A remarkable lady!